DAVID PLASTOW

Lord Hives, managing director from 1946 and chairman of Rolls-Royce from 1950 to 1957 once said that Rolls-Royce was “a company of engineers, run by engineers for engineers.” But while David Plastow started his career as an engineering apprentice for Vauxhall, he would ultimately come to represent a step shift in the history of Rolls-Royce.

It was in sales and marketing that Plastow’s career began, so when he became managing director of Rolls-Royce Ltd in 1971, after 13 years at the company, he was in many ways the right person for the job at a very critical time. Rolls-Royce Ltd went